Arthur I. Cyr: What’s in a word? Consider ‘Youthquake’

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Dec 19, 2017 at 11:43 AMDec 19, 2017 at 11:43 AM

“Youthquake” arrives. The learned lexicographers at the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) have now selected this word as official Word of the Year 2017. The august organization defines this odd term as, “a significant cultural, political, or social change arising from the actions or influence of young people.”

This word is what those who study and analyze language term a “portmanteau,” meaning a word formed from the combination or compression of two other words. Other examples include “motel” combined from motor and hotel, “smog” combined from smoke and fog, and “brunch” derived from breakfast and lunch.

The word portmanteau also traditionally refers to a large suitcase divided into equal sections, as your grandparents or perhaps great grandparents, or at least early 20th century travelers, likely would be aware. This word derives from the French “porte-manteau,” which combines the verb for “to carry” (porter) and the noun for “cloak.”

Young people in Britain registered and voted in exceptionally large numbers in the general election held on June 8. Their powerful support for the Labour Party upended the plans of the ruling Conservative Party for Brexit, a portmanteau for leaving the European Union. The Conservatives anticipated expanding their narrow House of Commons majority, but instead became a minority.

Prime Minister Theresa May is beleaguered, on the defensive politically and her days in office are probably numbered. She governs only with the support of the small Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland, which complicates policy. Also because of the election, the Labour Party is on a rise, and party leader Jeremy Corbyn — who is 68-years-old — has become something of a celebrity, especially among the young.

Ashley May writing about the OED Word of the Year in “USA Today” announces, “No, we haven’t heard of it either.” She quotes Casper Grathwohl, the President of Oxford Dictionaries, to the effect that, “the word was not an obvious choice” but that researchers at his institution determined that usage of the word has increased “fivefold,” which is a lot even if measurement methods remain obscure.

The website Inews.co.uk further quotes Grathwohl to the effect that the word has positive connotations: “At a time when our language is reflecting our deepening unrest and exhausted nerves, it is a rare political word that sounds a hopeful note.”

May (the journalist, not the Prime Minister) is part of larger good company. For example, the headline of a column in The Washington Post by Jennifer Hassan reads, “The Oxford Dictionaries’ Word of the Year is a word nobody actually uses.”

Hassan has also done due diligence, especially praiseworthy in today’s media, and reports that the term was coined in 1965 by Diana Vreeland, editor of fashionable and influential Vogue magazine. She was using the word to underscore the important and rapidly changing impact the enormous, at the time young, Baby Boomer generation was having on music, the arts generally, styles in fashion and the wider society, and other matters.

Tremendous political as well as social unrest also characterized the 1960s, followed by long-term high inflation combined with high unemployment that lasted through the 1970s. In the United States, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy presaged years of domestic unrest and violence, in urban areas and on campuses. Crime rates nationwide remained high throughout these years. The Vietnam War was intensely divisive.